One step backwards, eighteen steps sideways...

[morsla]

I think my favourite childhood birthday present was a set of jeweller's screwdrivers. Over the years, I had accumulated a pile of worn out and broken down toys with frozen joints or keys that didn't wind. Of course, I didn't throw anything out - I come from a long line of obsessive hoarders. Instead, the old and worn out toys were consigned to the darkness at the back of my wardrobe.

Then one year I was given the tools to open up all the old toys, find out how they worked, and put them back together again. Often, the problems weren't easily fixed - cheap plastic gears that had worn down, or parts that had shattered after a fall. I learned a lot about how gears and springs made things work, though, and I salvaged enough spare parts to re-build most of the fallen toys. Just not all of them at once...

Today has been one long stretch of procrastination, of the most productive kind. I made some good progress on a website yesterday, tinkering with CSS for hours. I think I have a workable template to start filling with some content. Does that mean I've spent today taking the logical next step, and filling that template with Stuff^TM?

Hell no. I've disassembled and rebuilt a vacuum cleaner (twice!) to make it work better, and then I launched into my best Hannelore impersonation by starting to clean everything in sight. I probably won't have a new virtual home by the end of today, but I'll damn well make sure the physical one is shiny by the time I'm finished...

Comments

[fetnas.livejournal.com]

I have similar fond memories with the one advantage of having an engineer as a dad and there for access to the tools to take many things apart.

The best story of taking things apart relates to my father as a boy. His father (my grandfather) was a police man in France. One of the poieces of equipment police cary is a revolver.

My father would take apart my grandfathers service revolver without him knowing and then reassemble it and put it back. It's a good thing he never had to use it in anger. Wouldn't have been good if it jammed!